Copacabana
12/01/2001
We finally reach Copacabana at 7am in the morning. Immigration is not
open yet, so we have to wait for an hour. After immigration, we take
a minibus to the city itself. Like always in countries like Peru and
Bolvia, they fill up the bus until it almost bursts. The road is very
bad and the minibus is almost falling apart, it definitely does not
have any suspension anymore and luckily the tires hold.
But our hotel, hotel Colonial, is a really nice place, with spacy,
clean rooms. And even more important, the first real shower in 4
days! Time passes by quickly with breakfast, reorganizing the luggage
(from the Inca Trail), changing money and getting a tour to Lake
Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the attraction here, it is the highest
navigable lake in the world (3800m). The tour starts noon, with a
boat ride to one of the islands, the island of sun. The lake is deep-
blue, really pretty, and the islands form a nice landscape. But the
boat ride is slow and boring, and we feel very tired from the events
durings the last couple of days so we don't get very excited about
Lake Titicaca like other people might do. The islands of the sun has
an traditional Indian population, and also historic sites, but you
can get excited about those after having seen Machu Pichu?
The day ends with dinner and.. the first sleep in a bed since four
days!
La Paz
12/02/2001
We leave Copacabana for La Paz. The road goes along Lake Titicaca for
the first part, until we have to cross the lake at one point. Funny
enough, while the passengers have to leave the bus and got
transported over the lake by a motorboat, the bus gets loaded on an
old ferry and makes its way by itself over the lake. Looking really
funny, a couple of buses on ferries going over the lake! Our
motorboat is shaking widely while making the short distance, to the
pleasure of Ben who already got sick in the bus. Well, he makes it
ok, and on the other side we get back in the bus again.
Another stop happens later - drug control! We get all out of the bus,
and a policemen controls my backpack - by sniffing in it! Since there
is my sweaty T-shirt right in there, the policemen decides I'm ok,
and turns to the next passenger.
We arrive in La Paz. La Paz's center lies in a valley, but all
surrounding mountains are full with houses, the more poorer areas of
the city. The bus first passes some really poor areas, but with a
great view down to the valley. Then it continues down to the valley,
which is way more developed. We take a taxi to our hotel and relax
for the evening.
12/03/2001
La Paz is a very lifely city - hundreds of people walk through the
streets, street vendors sells their stuff, and the huge traffic
pushes the pedestrians off the streets, without mercy. From various
places, the Illimani can be seen, a pretty snow capped mountain of
about 6500m close to La Paz.
The day is dedicated to some organization. I need a flight back from
Brazil, which so far would cost me $1500 one-way! (It is actually
round-trip, but there are not really any one-way fares, there are at
times even more than the round-trip fares!!). So I chose another
approach by choosing two separate flights, one from Brazil to Miami,
and one from Miami to Munich. Still, I have trouble with the Brazil -
Miami part.
12/04/2001
After a lot of effort, I finally get my flights together. Leaving
Brazil on the 22th of December in the evening, arriving 5am in Miami
on the 23rd, waiting for 12 hours, and finally leaving Miami at 5pm
to arrive in Munich on the 24th in the morning!
So I'm ready to go to the South of Bolivia, to the 'salt lake' area,
which has unbelievable landscapes - my last tour on my trip. Ben
wants to climb the Huyna Potosi, a 6088m peak close to La Paz, so we
will go our separate paths.
In the evening, I take the night bus to Uyuni, starting point of the
salt lake tours. While the beginning of the journey is very pleasant,
with view of mountains on the left side and the sunset on the right
side, the busride gets rougher and rougher later. The roads are very
bad, and the bus is shaking left and right. As so often, too many
people in the bus and crying babies are inevitable and don't help
much to make the ride more pleasurable. Also, it gets cold, not badly
cold, but cold enough that advice of the bus company to take the
sleeping bag proves to be useful.
Uyuni and the Salars
12/05/2001
The bus arrives in Uyuni early in the morning. The area here is
mostly desert, but a desert at 3700m altitude! It is very flat, with
a couple of mountains here and there. Uyuni is a typical desert city,
dusty, with wide streets and simple buildings. I was actually
planning to spend the night in Uyuni, but right at the bus ambitious
tour operators try to sell their trip. One of them (Paula Tours) had
an open space in their tour for today, and as the price of $70 seemed
reasonable, I signed up for it. Now it is 8am, the next two hours I
spend with breakfast, and preparing myself for the trip. Finally, at
10:30, our truck leaves town!
The tour is basically to see the incredible and different nature in
this area. This is first of all the so-called 'salars', the salt
lakes, but includes desert, lagunas, fauna and flora, and vulcanic
active places. All tours are basically structured the same: 4-6
people in a 4WD truck, plus driver and sometimes a cook, driving to
the most interesting spots during 4 days, where the last 1.5 days is
usually spent just to return to Uyuni. In our group, there are two
Australian girls and three guys from France. Well, I know not to
listen to clichees like 'French don't speak English very well', but
as the French guys enter our truck, after introducing ourselves, they
ask sadly: 'So nobody speaks French??' ;)
The first stop is the cementary of trains right outside Uyuni. There
is a train line that goes from north to south, and old cars were just
left here at this cementary. Pretty interesting to examine those old
and rusty trains.
Then, we finally go to the Salar Uyuni, the biggest salt lake in the
world. It covers an area of 12,000 sq. miles and is at an altitude of
3653 meters. The salt lakes are not real lakes, they were a part of a
prehistoric lake which then dried up, leaving a couple of small lakes
and saltpans. As we arrive at the salt lake, the view is like on a
different planet. Miles and miles of flat, while ground with no end
to see. Bring your sunglasses, because without them it is almost not
possible to open the eyes! We also see workers who extract the salt
from the ground, building little heaps of salt on the ground. We
can't help but test it ourselves - take a little of the ground, taste
it, yes - salt!
Next stop is the Isla Pescado - of course it is not a real island,
but it looks like one, in the white sea of salt! The special thing
about the Isla Pescado are the cactus that cover its whole ground.
The cactus are huge, three, four times a mens' size. The whole
impression is surreal, an island with cactus, surrounded by the
endless unreal white salt lake. Like on a different planet. Here are
some pictures I found on the web:
http://www.geocities.com/south_america_trip/bolivia/salt.html
After lunch, prepared by Valeria, our cook, the drive goes on, the
road is mainly a track in the ground. Sometimes the ride goes smooth,
sometimes it is pretty bumpy. After a short stop at an historic cave
with some skeleton remains, we arrive in the little village of San
Juan, which is the place to stay at this night in a simple room. The
thing I find so typical about South America is that no matter how a
place is, how poor, there is the (real size) soccer field, and San
Juan is no exception.
We explore the village a little, and find a group of Llamas staring
funny at us, held together in a fence. We see what their future will
be - one of them just got killed, with the guts lying on the ground.
Not a nice sight :(
12/06/2001
The second day of our expedition! After breakfast of 7:30am, a lot of
driving is again the program, since the attractions are far away. One
of the French guy brought tapes with depressing music, which he keeps
playing and which doesn't match the impressions of the amazing
landscape flying by our windows. Well, luckily, after some time he
gives up on it, and we listen to some typical South American music.
First stop is a huge, again endless area of corals. These are of
course not under water, since all the area is dry and desert. Then we
reach the first laguna, laguna Canapa at the altitude of 4200m. A
really beatiful sight, with different blue and white tones of color.
Our guide told us it does not consist of salt, rather of a material
called Borax, but I'm not so sure what it is, I think something like
Gypsum. Flamingoes are enjoying themselves on the laguna, perfecting
the peaceful and beatiful sight.
We stop at a couple of lagunas, but all are topped by the final place
for today: the laguna colorada, which should also be the place for
tonight. The laguna deserves its name - all shades of white, blue,
yellow, and red can be seen in an astonishing mixture! Further down,
a huge populations of Flamingoes also has visited this laguna. An
icecold wind blows strongly, but I and the French guys decide to walk
around the laguna, to the other side. We get rewarded with another
cool view - little hills of a white material (probably Borax again),
really looking like snow.
The place for the night is not very nice - they don't even have water
there, it is cold, and the room narrow and uncomfortable. Maybe the
only negative thing of the otherwise nice tour.
12/07/2001
We get up early, 4:30, since the place with vulcanic activity is best
seen early in the morning. As we arrive, the scenery is more like on
planet Mars. Steam is shooting out of the ground in some places, in
others there are little holes with bubbling boiling vulcanic fluid,
and again others, little eruptions through vulcanic mass up in the
air. All accompanied by the typical smell of Sulfur.
Closeby is aquas calientes - hot springs! At the edge of a laguna,
there is a little hole with nicely hot water, and some of us
(including me!) don't hesitate to jump in, while others just put
their feet in (since they probably did not take their bathing
suits!). It is a wonderful relaxing experience, especially after two
days driving in the dry desert with no shower.
The last scenic stops for today are the laguna verde and the laguna
blanca. Both are beautiful and deserve their names, showing a green
and white color, respectively. After visiting them, the French guys
leave the tour to cross over to Chile. It is an option of the tour -
since we are very close to the border of Chile at this point, people
can choose to take the bus to there.
The rest of the day is basically dedicated to driving back. We only
stop at pretty amazing rock formations, reminding one of the western
movies.
12/08/2001
Some 5-6 hours of driving bring us back to Uyuni, where we say
goodbye to our tourguide and cook. The tour was great and the nature
we saw unbelievable and strangly new.
One of the last highlights of my trip will be the waterfalls of
Iguazu, at the Argentinian/Brazilian border. However, I'm not quite
sure how to get there - there is a road from Bolivia to Paraguay
which would bring me close, but frequenctly I've heard that it is
unreliable, in case of rain it gets flooded and one day bus rides
turn into four days bus ride. So I decide to rather cross to
Argentina where the bus rides are more reliable (I do not think about
strikes and the bad economical situation of Argentina at this time,
but this story will be told later!).
A bus goes tomorrow morning south towards the border of Bolivia with
Argentina. So I buy a ticket and enjoy the comfortable night in
Uyuni, with people walking on the streets and enjoying themselves.
However, I better should have taken the train that will go tomorrow
night...
Villazon
12/09/2001
Normally, a bus in the poorer countries in South America only leaves
when every little space is filled up, and even the corridor between
the seats is full with people. However, today I see the first time
that some Bolivians in the bus are shouting 'vamos' - let's go, as
the bus driver tries to stop again to let some more people in.
I have had many hard bus rides on my trip so far, but this one is
just beyond evil. The road is a catastrophe and the bus is only able
to go 20-40 mph. It is rattling, shaking, bouncing over holes, and
crossing little streams of river. Later, it is struggeling up
mountain roads and tight turns. A terrible ride of 10 hours until we
arrive in Tupiza, where I need to switch busses to Villazon, the town
at the border to Argentina. In a mad rush of optimism, I hope that
the minibus I take now would be better, but the minibus easily
convinces me of the opposite. The road is even more terrible, and the
little bus seems close to falling apart. Finally 3 hours later in
Villazon, the only thing I'm capable to do is to fall in my bed (as I
luckily found a place to stay quickly).
On to Argentina...